Fire pumps, in addition to other pumping equipment, often must be tested to ensure the equipment meets certain performance requirements. The physical environment for fire pump testing can be challenging because a building's fire pump is almost universally indoors but the discharge of up to thousands of gallons a minute of water is almost universally outdoors. Accurately measuring the high water flow rates associated with fire pumps is done at the outlet of the discharge hose or pipe, as is discussed in the related patent application to the same inventor referenced above.
Prior art test systems use one person at the water outlet with a radio to set the water flow and then alert another person at the fire pump that the flow rate has reached a required level so that pump-related measurements may be taken by the other person. Alternatively, one person may set the water flow rate, assume that the rate will remain constant and then enter the building to record the fire pump data and return outside to turn off the water. The former method is costly in terms of manpower, the latter is costly in terms of the extra water expended during the test, given that several thousand gallons of water a minute may be dumped into a street or storm. It is common for some tests to take 30 minutes or more resulting in very high water consumption during the test.
In order to achieve the flow required, several different outlet pipes or hoses may be used, so that setting the water flow to the required rate may require resetting some valves as other are adjusted.